The three national policemen who caused the shooting death of the young Kebyn Peralta in Madrid are on their way to sit on the bench. The judge in the case has issued an order in which he establishes that it will be a court of jury that decides if the policemen could have reduced the young man without pulling the trigger, as they did on at least 18 occasions before an alleged knife attack, or if they exceeded themselves to commit a crime of homicide.
Kebyn’s death: questions about police action in Vallecas
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In an order issued last Monday, to which he has had access elDiario.es, the head of the Investigating Court number 1 of Madrid, Pedro López Jiménez, concludes the investigation, stating that “it is plausible the imputation that the reported facts are made to the national police officers.” These facts, he adds, “are, for now, and without prejudice to further qualification, the characteristics of the crime of homicide.”
According to the Organic Law of the Jury Court, it will be a citizen’s court that judges the three national police officers who, in any case, have a period of three days to appeal the magistrate’s decision.
If the foreseeable appeal of the defenses against their decision is not successful, the jury will analyze all the evidence carried out so far, that is, it will listen to the accusations, the defendants, the experts who have prepared the reports… and will decide if they are declared proven. or not the facts attributed to the police. With his decision, the president of the court will write the judgment.
Kebyn Brayan Peralta Asencio, a 20-year-old black man of Spanish nationality, died on November 26, 2021 as a result of six shots out of at least 18 shots fired by three national police officers on the landing of his house, in the neighborhood de Palomeras, one of the hardest hit in the capital. The boy’s mother had gone out into the street, accompanied by a brother of the victim, to call the Police and ask for help due to the altered and violent state in which her son was found.
The police version
Esther, the mother, expected the agents to calm down Kebyn or take him out of the home, but shortly after they began to go up to the ninth floor, equipped with a protective shield and their regulation weapons, she began to hear shots.
The police officers declared in court that they entered the house with the keys that Kebyn’s mother had given them and asked them to leave her room. What they found, they say, is the boy with a lost look and hiding a knife with a 12.5-centimeter blade – something larger than the one used as a cover for a steak – under a sleeve.
According to the account of the agents, Kebyn repeatedly attacked them in attacks against the listener, behind which the three were lined up. The boy, they say, hit the knife against the shield, attacked with the knife above it and from the sides, until the agent who was carrying it lost his shield. Kebyn, according to this story, would have taken the opportunity to try to stab one of the agents in the head, who dodged several times at a short distance.
It was this agent who would have fired in the first place. The other two who had gone up with him in the elevator followed suit. By the time the fourth policeman, who had been delayed because he couldn’t fit in the first elevator ride, reached the ninth floor, Kebyn was already on his knees. Despite this, the agents’ story continues, Kebyn did not drop the knife, so they had to hit him “many times” with the defenses and even step on his hand. Even so, he continued to stir, they say. One of them got on top of him, and “after several minutes” they managed to shackle him.
The report of the forensic doctor attached to the court concluded that there were no shots directed at vital organs and that all were fired standing up, face to face, except for one, more tilted. But he added: “Each of the shots, by themselves, probably would not have caused death, by causing minor bleeding that could, eventually, have allowed greater survival, and hospital surgical treatment.” Kebyn was 1.70 and weighed 70 kilos.
The knife was found without a handle and without traces.
The supposed knife that Kebyn used against the policemen was found broken on a shelf in the living room. The blade was separated from the handle and was found next to the access door to the house. One of the policemen assures that the knife broke as a result of the impacts against the shield, more than 15.
Another policeman stated that, despite the fact that the knife appeared without a handle, Kebyn Brayan stuck it “many times” against the wall in his attempt to hit the policeman who fired first in the head and who, after receiving six shots, never reached him. release. The Scientific Police report found no traces on the knife.
The alleged disproportion in the number of shots, both for the shells found and for the projectiles that reached Kebyn’s body, would not be such due to the altered state of the attacker, according to the police officers. A toxicology report revealed the presence of various drugs in the victim’s body, without determining if he had recently used them.
Judge Pedro López ordered a new report to the Scientific Police to find out the influence that the substances could have had on the young man’s resistance to being shot and if it was as violent as the agents described it. With his result, he was going to make a decision about sending the policemen to trial or not. The report is already known by the judge, but it has not yet been incorporated into the proceedings. After studying its content, the magistrate has proposed that a court judge the three policemen, defended by the Jupol union, for murder.
